Heritage Register
Rockland
1321 Rockland Avenue
(ex-195 Belcher St)
Ellesmere
Built
1889
Heritage-Registered
For: James & Mary Angus
Architect: Leonard Buttress Trimen with John Gerhard Tiarks
ARCHITECTURE:
Ellesmere is a rare example in Victoria of the American
Stick Style, with its vertical, horizontal and patterned
stickwork over drop-siding. There is also Tudor Revival-style
roughcast stucco and assorted half-timbering patterns in the
gables. This two-storey building, which backs onto Rockland
Av, has two deep, hip-roofed wings on this façade. The
entrance façade to the right is an anomaly: parged to imitate
stone, this two-storey extension with its Tudor-arched entry
porch is original to the house. This block has crenellations,
a parapeted gable, an angled oriel window, moulded corner
buttress, and narrow, slit-like sash windows. The garden
façade opposite Rockland has two steeply-gabled, shallow
extensions separated by an upper floor balcony over a lower
angled bay; this bay was added after 1962, replacing a
conservatory. An original single-storey bay is to the left of
the angled bay. Many of the main floor windows are banks of
long, vertical windows beneath small, square, stained-glass
windows; c.2004 similar windows replaced the 1962 picture
window. Ellesmere was assessed at $10,000 in 1890.
Tiarks was working in Trimen’s office in 1889; the
Angus daughters only remembered the young, handsome
Tiarks, not the older Trimen. The office was also designing
the Jacobean-style Ashnola for a Dunsmuir daughter
at the same time. There are obvious similarities between the
two houses, as well as Tiarks’s 1896 Great Hall at the Keating
Farm Estate south of Duncan. Angus family lore states that
the design of Ellesmere was based on Tiarks’s father’s rectory
in Chislehurst, SE London, ENG.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1889-1962: James Alexander Angus (c.1833-1903)
was born in Scotland; in the mid-1850s, due to an economic
depression, he moved his family to the English Midlands. In
1887 he brought them to Victoria. James was a provisions
and wine merchant with the firm of Angus & Gordon. His
brother, Richard B. Angus (1831-1922) was a member of
the syndicate
that built the
CPR. James and
his wife Mary
(Fairweather,
1839-1925)
had five
children: Lucy,
Amy, James
Alexander, Mary
Isabella, and
Richard. Mary
was born in
Russia, where
members of her
family had worked for the Tsar’s family.
Bella (1869-1965) married Benjamin
Tingley “B.T.” Rogers (1865-1918) in 1892,
and moved to Vancouver. B.T. came to BC
from Montreal, and established the BC Sugar
Refining Co in Vancouver in 1890 with capital
from R.B. Angus. Bella involved herself in
Vancouver’s cultural life, and established the
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1930.
She remained one of the symphony’s main
financial supporters, until she retired as life
president in 1960. She was president of the
Women’s Musical Club, and a founding
member of the Vancouver Art Gallery. She was
named a Member of the British Empire for her
dedication to cultural life.
Unmarried children Lucy, Amy and Sasha
lived at Ellesmere after their mother died. Sasha (1873-
1952) was employed by BC Sugar for many years. He lived
in this house until the early 1930s, and died in Duncan.
Amy (1874-1943) and Lucy (1871-1948) lived at Ellesmere
until their deaths.
Lucy loved and cared
for the garden. Dick
(1870-1950) lived at
home until he married
Elizabeth Heaney
(1884-1967) in Victoria
in 1912. Elizabeth was
born in Ireland and
came to Victoria with
her family in 1892. Dick
was the founder of the wholesale automobile equipment
firm of R. Angus Co. He was a colonel of the Fifth
Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, and was a member
of Oak Bay council for 17 years until 1946. Dick and
Elizabeth moved back to the house in 1948, and Elizabeth
lived at Ellesmere after Dick’s death until 1962.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1962-2002: G.F. and Kathleen Hall replaced the
conservatory in the middle of the garden façade with
another bay, in the style of the one to the left, but with a
large picture window in the centre.
2003-06: Jim Britten and Mike Browne reconfigured
the kitchen, and replaced the picture window with windows
replicating those in the rest of the main floor. They then
moved to 1372 Craigdarroch Rd, Rockland.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties
• Rockland History
• Rockland Heritage Register
• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra,
North Park & Oaklands
